One day, a fishmonger walked past the royal palace and loudly praised her wares. The queen heard this, looked out of the window and beckoned the merchant to come to her to better see what she had brought. He sees a big fish struggling at the bottom of the basket.
– Is yours a male or a female? – asks the queen. “I need a female.”
As soon as she said this, she heard the fish laugh.
“This is a male,” answered the merchant and went on her way.
Angry, the queen returned to her chambers and could not find a place for herself all day. In the evening the king comes to her and sees that she is alarmed about something.
-Are you healthy? - asks the king.
“I’m healthy, I’m healthy,” the queen answers, “but I get annoyed when I remember about the fish.” Today a trader brings fish, and I ask if it is a male or a female. And suddenly the fish starts laughing!
- Does the fish laugh? It can't be! You dreamed it!
“I’m in my right mind and I’m talking about what I saw with my own eyes and heard with my own ears.”
-What kind of miracle is this? Well, have it your way! You just need to ask knowledgeable people what this is for.
In the morning, the king told the vizier about everything and ordered him to explain this miracle. He gave him six months and said:
- If you don’t figure it out, you won’t live.
The vizier was saddened, but there was nothing to do, he had to carry out the order. And so he went to foreign lands to look for an answer to why the fish laughed. Wherever he had been, whom he had asked. Sages and scientists, skilled magicians and cunning fakirs puzzled over this problem, but could not solve it. Five months passed and the vizier returned home with nothing. He began to wait for inevitable death: did he not know that the king does not throw words to the wind!
And the vizier had a son, handsome and smart. The vizier ordered him to leave the city for a while until the royal anger cooled down. So the young man went aimlessly. He walked and walked, and an old peasant came across him on the way. The young man didn’t care where to go, he liked the old man, and they went together. The day was hot, the road was long, so the young man said:
“Shouldn’t we take turns carrying each other to pass the way?”
“What a weirdo!” – that’s all the old man thought. They walk past a wheat field. Ripe, golden ears wave in the wind like the sea.
– Do you know whether this bread has been eaten or not? - asks the young man.
“What I don’t know, I don’t know,” the old man answers, although, to tell the truth, he couldn’t understand what this guy was asking him about.
They come to a large village. Here the young man gives his companion a knife and says:
- Take it, buddy, and get us a couple of horses. And look, give me back the knife - this thing is expensive.
At this point the old man got angry and grumbled:
-Are you out of your mind? Or did you want to laugh at me?
The young man ignored these words and said nothing more. He was silent until the road led them to the big city. The travelers turned to the market, went into the mosque, but no one addressed them with a kind word, did not invite them into the house, did not offer to rest. __ What a big cemetery! – the young man exclaimed here.
“And what came into his mind to call this crowded city that?” thought the old man.
The old man's village was just a stone's throw away. Their path lay through the cemetery. Here and there there were people at the graves, praying and serving cakes and sweets to passers-by in memory of the souls of their deceased relatives. They called these two travelers and generously provided them with food.
– What a wonderful city! - said the young man.
“He must be crazy. Would you like to know what else he would do? Will he call the earth water and the water dry land? Light is darkness and darkness is light?” – the old man thought, but didn’t say anything out loud.
We passed the cemetery and saw a deep stream flowing across the road. The old man took off his shoes, rolled up his pants higher and moved to the other side. And the young man, as he was, followed him without taking off his shoes.
“Well, well! I’ve never seen such a fool: he talks stupidly, and his business is no better!” - the old man said to himself. And he still liked the guy. “Let this eccentric amuse my wife and daughter,” the old man thought and began to invite the young man to spend the night with him and stay with them in the village.
“Thank you,” he replied. “But let me first ask, are the beams in your house strong?”
The old man just waved his hand, laughed and went home.
He greeted his wife and daughter and said:
“My traveling companion remained there outside the village. I wanted to bring him to us so that he could stay with us, but there was no way to come to an agreement with this fool. He asks if the beams in my house are strong.
The old man said this and burst into laughter. And the old man’s daughter was extremely smart and quick-witted.
“Father,” she said, “your traveling companion is not at all as stupid as you think.” He just wanted to know if the guest would be a burden to you.
- Oh, that's it! – the old man exclaimed. “Now I understand.” Well, if so, solve other riddles for me. We set off on the road, he offered to carry each other to while away the journey.
“Isn’t it a riddle?” the girl answered. “He wanted to say that if one of you starts telling something interesting, then time will fly by.”
“But it’s true,” the old man agreed. “Well, when we walked through a wheat field, he asked whether this bread had been eaten or not.”
- Don’t you understand, father? He wanted to know if the owner of the field had any debts. If there is, then it’s the same as if the wheat has already been eaten, because you will have to pay with it.
- And that’s right! – the old man was delighted. “Well, listen further.” When we entered the village, he gave me a knife and told me to get two horses and give the knife back to him.
“Isn’t he talking about strong staffs, which, like two good horses, will make your way easier?” “He wanted you to cut off two sticks and not lose the knife,” the girl answered.
- That's it! – the old man was surprised. “Well, when we walked through the city, we didn’t come across anyone we knew, and not a single soul gave us a crumb.” And at the cemetery people called out to us and gave us cakes and sweets. And so my fellow traveler called the city a cemetery, and the cemetery a city.
- What's so surprising about that! Where, if not in the city, is there plenty of everything? And inhospitable people are no better than the dead. A crowded city where travelers are not welcomed will seem like a cemetery. And at the cemetery, kind people greeted you and fed you.
- Your truth! - said the old man. - Well, why did he go across the stream in his clothes and shoes?
“I’m amazed at how intelligent he is!” – the girl answered. “I myself often think how ridiculous people behave: they step barefoot on the sharp stones of this stormy stream.” I slipped a little and fell and got wet until I was drunk. Truly your friend is a wise man, it would be good to get to know him.
- What’s easier! “I will find him and bring him here,” said the old man.
- Just don’t forget to say that the beams in our house are strong, then he will come. And I’ll send him a gift in advance - let him see that we are glad to have a guest.
Then she calls the servant and tells him to give the young man gifts: a bowl of guavas, twelve cakes and a jug of milk.
- Yes, tell him that now is the full moon, there are twelve months in the year, and the sea is full of water.
The servant went to look for the young man, but his youngest son followed him and begged his father for the most delicious pieces from the basket.
The servant found the young man, gave him gifts, repeated the words of the mistress, and the young man responded:
“Bow to your mistress and say that it’s the new moon, I counted eleven months in the year, and the sea is really full of water.”
The servant did not understand anything, but word for word he conveyed everything to his mistress, and she immediately realized that the servant had hidden the fruits and one cake, and punished him for this.
Finally the owner brought the young man into the house. They greeted him as a welcome guest, as the son of noble parents, although they did not know what kind of tribe he was. Soon he told them everything: about how the fish laughed, and about his father’s bitter fate, and about why he left home. He told and asked:
- What should I do now? What to do? The girl answers:
“The fish is to blame for everything, and its laughter means this: in the king’s palace, in the women’s quarters, a man is hidden.”
The young man heard these words and was incredibly happy that he would now be able to save his father from an evil death.
The next morning he took the old man’s daughter and hurried with her to his native land. They arrived in the capital, came to the palace, and then the young man told his father everything he had learned. And the poor vizier no longer dreamed of finding deliverance from his terrible fate. Half-dead with fear, he appeared before the king and repeated what he had heard from his son.
- That can’t be true! - the king exclaimed.
- And you try to gather all the palace maids and order them to jump over the pit. “This is where what I’m telling you will be confirmed: the man will immediately give himself away,” answered the vizier.
The king did just that. He ordered to dig a hole and ordered all the maids to jump over it. We tried everything, but only one managed to jump over. And in fact it turned out to be a man.
So the queen found out why the fish was laughing, and the faithful vizier was saved from death.
Well, when everything was ready for the wedding, the vizier’s son married the peasant’s daughter. They lived happily ever after.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru